Survivor megathread

[7,052,770]

FYI - Paramount Plus now has New Zealand 2 and South Africa 8. I recommend both of them.

[7,052,770]

I'm going to revive this tradition and guess the politics of each S41 contestant. All of this is based on vibes from watching the show - I haven't researched or looked at their social media profiles.

In order from right to left:

• Heather - White female from South Carolina. While she was receptive to learning more about it, did not seem to be aware of the struggles of black Americans.
• Brad - Demographically, a rancher from rural Wyoming is very likely to be a Republican. He got along well with LGBT/BIPOC members of his tribe, so I wouldn't say he's certainly a Trump voter, but I still say it's more likely than not.
• Tiffany - I don't remember her ever discussing politics. She gives similar vibes to Heather, but she's from Nassau County, NY, so could go either way.
• Voce - No real indication either way. Demographics (white male surgeon) lean Republican, but he is a millennial from California.
• Naseer - Ironically, I wouldn't be totally shocked if he were a pro-Trump South Asian immigrant, but I still suspect he's more likely to be a Democrat. Not sure what religion he is. For that matter I'm not sure what % of the Sri Lankan-American vote Biden got.
• Sara - No real indication either way, but she is a millennial (Gen Z?) woman from California who now lives in Boston, so probably Democratic.
• Sydney - I could actually be totally wrong here, but she gives off huge liberal elite vibes. Through 2012, I might have had her as a total tossup, but I just don't see her liking Trump.
• Abraham, JD - I don't remember either of them talking about politics or BLM on the show, but I'm just going with demographics.
• Genie - I also don't remember her discussing politics, but it seems very likely that she is liberal, given her demographics.
• Erika - Canadian, immigrant, minority, and talked about how her experiences as each.
• Xander - Would have been the medium red, but his strong words about Black Lives Matter and the black cast members calling him an Ally put him here.
• Evvie - Super visible LGBT  from Massachusetts in academia.
• Ricard - Gay man married to a transman. The only cast member to object to "Come on in, guys." (Not sure if he's a minority or a tan white man.)
• Danny, Deshawn, Liana, Shan - Major plot point of the season.

So this would be an unusually liberal cast. I think a vote count (really a support count because Erika and possibly Shan can't vote in the USA) of 13-5 Biden is pretty optimistic for Trump, and it could easily be a 16-2 Biden wipeout.

ETA - I just realized that I gave everybody their own line, except for the black contestants who had to share lines because they had the same views and justifications. That should not be seen as intentional or a statement of "all black people are the same." It's just the way they were portrayed on the show. Please don't move me from dark red to light blue.

[SnowLabrador]

It's been confirmed that Season 42 will have all the same advantages as Season 41. As a longtime fan of the show, what's the point in me watching if it's the same season with different people?

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I'm going to revive this tradition and guess the politics of each S41 contestant. All of this is based on vibes from watching the show - I haven't researched or looked at their social media profiles.

In order from right to left:

• Heather - White female from South Carolina. While she was receptive to learning more about it, did not seem to be aware of the struggles of black Americans.
• Brad - Demographically, a rancher from rural Wyoming is very likely to be a Republican. He got along well with LGBT/BIPOC members of his tribe, so I wouldn't say he's certainly a Trump voter, but I still say it's more likely than not.
• Tiffany - I don't remember her ever discussing politics. She gives similar vibes to Heather, but she's from Nassau County, NY, so could go either way.
• Voce - No real indication either way. Demographics (white male surgeon) lean Republican, but he is a millennial from California.
• Naseer - Ironically, I wouldn't be totally shocked if he were a pro-Trump South Asian immigrant, but I still suspect he's more likely to be a Democrat. Not sure what religion he is. For that matter I'm not sure what % of the Sri Lankan-American vote Biden got.
• Sara - No real indication either way, but she is a millennial (Gen Z?) woman from California who now lives in Boston, so probably Democratic.
• Sydney - I could actually be totally wrong here, but she gives off huge liberal elite vibes. Through 2012, I might have had her as a total tossup, but I just don't see her liking Trump.
• Abraham, JD - I don't remember either of them talking about politics or BLM on the show, but I'm just going with demographics.
• Genie - I also don't remember her discussing politics, but it seems very likely that she is liberal, given her demographics.
• Erika - Canadian, immigrant, minority, and talked about how her experiences as each.
• Xander - Would have been the medium red, but his strong words about Black Lives Matter and the black cast members calling him an Ally put him here.
• Evvie - Super visible LGBT  from Massachusetts in academia.
• Ricard - Gay man married to a transman. The only cast member to object to "Come on in, guys." (Not sure if he's a minority or a tan white man.)
• Danny, Deshawn, Liana, Shan - Major plot point of the season.

So this would be an unusually liberal cast. I think a vote count (really a support count because Erika and possibly Shan can't vote in the USA) of 13-5 Biden is pretty optimistic for Trump, and it could easily be a 16-2 Biden wipeout.

ETA - I just realized that I gave everybody their own line, except for the black contestants who had to share lines because they had the same views and justifications. That should not be seen as intentional or a statement of "all black people are the same." It's just the way they were portrayed on the show. Please don't move me from dark red to light blue.

Sara and Xander both did wear crosses, but Sara seemed to also affirm and approve of a homosexual marriage in the premiere.  Also, I could at least conceivably fathom someone like Danny or Deshawn voting Republican, while I could absolutely say with certainty that there is no way Evvie (who also said in her Survivor bio that her inspiration is AOC) or Ricard does.

[7,052,770]

Sara and Xander both did wear crosses, but Sara seemed to also affirm and approve of a homosexual marriage in the premiere.  Also, I could at least conceivably fathom someone like Danny or Deshawn voting Republican, while I could absolutely say with certainty that there is no way Evvie (who also said in her Survivor bio that her inspiration is AOC) or Ricard does.

I wonder if they would even cast someone who didn't "affirm and approve of a homosexual marriage" in 2021. Even the two most likely Republicans on the cast of this season didn't seem to have any friction or discomfort with the LGBTQ contestants.

I could see Danny voting Republican in a hypothetical alternate world where the Republican Party embraced BLM instead of Trumpism, but I just don't see it at all in this current 2021 time. Not really seeing it from Deshawn though.

[7,052,770]

It's been confirmed that Season 42 will have all the same advantages as Season 41. As a longtime fan of the show, what's the point in me watching if it's the same season with different people?

Hopefully they at least fix the hourglass twist, because I still haven't come up with any example of why a player wouldn't smash it if they're personally moving from non-immune to immune. I'm quite certain that all 12 contestants who made it to that round would have smashed. Notice that Erika didn't get any backlash, because everyone understood how obvious of a choice it was.

Also, Sydney remains the only person in Survivor history to be told she was immune and still be voted out without having intentionally given up her immunity. That's really bad and can't ever happen again.

[Progressive Pessimist]

I'm taking a one day break from my...well, break from this forum, so even though I'm a bit late to the party I thought I'd just share my brief thoughts on the final.

Frankly, I had figured that Erika would be a likely winner once she orchestrated the Liana-Shan split vote. The only question was whether she would make it to the final three or not. Surprisingly, and stupidly, Xander picked her over the obvious goat, Heather to not have to make fire. This major miscalculation made me not so surprised, unlike some including my mom who I discussed the finale with the next day who couldn't fathom how Xander lost. That said, I really didn't think that Xander would get zero votes, especially less than Deshawn. I figured that at least Evvie, Naseer, and Tiffany would have voted for him.

But regardless of all that, Erika was a deserving to me and I would have been satisfied if either her or Xander won. But with her winning at least it breaks the all-male winner streak of the last four years.

Xander should have taken her to fire and knocked her out.

I'm going to disagree 100% and take it a step further and say that the person winning immunity shouldn't even be allowed to give up immunity and make fire themselves. Why? Because a move like that shouldn't be rewarded by the jury or become an "expectation" of a winning game.

A fire-making challenge is practically a coinflip unless one person just has no idea how to do it, and a good player avoids it instead of willingly puts themselves into it. I respect Tommy's approach to weasel his way out of firemaking (also Ryan in S35) way more than I respect Chris putting himself in danger, and although Natalie winning S40 would have been a cancel-the-show level disgrace, I do respect her for not putting herself in a coinflip danger there, and even if she'd taken Tony herself and beaten him, I wouldn't respect it because, like I said, it's a glorified coinflip.

(Obviously the real answer is to abolish the F4 firemaking, but Jeff Probst has no interest in that. If you get voted off at final 4, it was your fault for not managing your threat level, nor playing your social cards right, nor winning immunity. I don't feel bad for Wentworth or David at all.)

Wholeheartedly seconded!

Also, I can't imagine what the final 3 went through to think the show was done and they were going home, and all of a sudden, Jeff's like, hey I'm reading the votes right now! Boom, Erika wins! And we're going straight to a reunion show!

Why not let them have a meal, shower, and sleep after reading the votes and do the "reunion" the next morning?

Also seconded! Oh my God! That annoyed the s*** out of me too! But I'll go further in saying that DeShawn and Xander not having processed their losses yet, very blatantly so from their body language, and especially for DeShawn after getting kind of reamed by the Jury; made it very uncomfortable to watch for me.

The pre-merge boots also got shafted pretty hard. Why not include them? Aren't they still kept at Ponderosa after getting voted out until the game ends?

It also wasn't even all that interesting. With Jeff not having seen the edit yet he was clearly inhibited with the questions he could ask, so it mostly became about everybody's "personal journeys" which would be fine if it wasn't just the cast reinforcing things they were saying all season long.

I know that they did this because of the pandemic, but they really should have at least held it a day or so later to let the final three bathe, eat, sleep, and think. I hope for better next season.

It's been confirmed that Season 42 will have all the same advantages as Season 41. As a longtime fan of the show, what's the point in me watching if it's the same season with different people?

To be fair, they probably filmed it back-to-back so they won't have taken in the audience reception until 43. They're basically holding us hostage with it being either that or no 'Survivor' at all. Hopefully we'll at least get a good cast again though.

[7,052,770]

FYI - Paramount Plus now has New Zealand 2 and South Africa 8. I recommend both of them.

And now Paramount Plus has Australia 1-6, New Zealand 1-2, and South Africa 6-8.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

The Survivor 42 cast was announced today...and one of the castaways (Daniel Strunk) *has* to be an Atlas poster:
https://ew.com/tv/survivor-season-42-cast-photos-bios/?slide=4fd56ff1-d15a-47d9-9374-4dacadb1af26#4fd56ff1-d15a-47d9-9374-4dacadb1af26

What is the accomplishment you are most proud of? I wrote in my journal a personal philosophy on what I think the purpose of life is, influenced by my battle with cancer, my religion, and my ideological beliefs.

What is something we would never know from looking at you? I collect signed pocket U.S. Constitutions. Among others, I have one signed by Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, Justice Sotomayor, and the former U.S. ambassador to Estonia.

Who is your hero and why? George Washington, for being one of the few to ever resist power of that magnitude. Roddie Edmonds, for putting his life on the line to do what was right.

Also, Tori Meehan seems to be a devout Christian.  It's been a few seasons since we've had someone open about their faith on the show, so I'm excited for that!

Who is your hero and why? It would be so cheesy to say Jesus, but I did want to use this question to explain the importance of my faith. I am a fully devoted follower of Christ, and my life motto is to "love God and love people." I recognize that there is a higher calling on my life than simply living for myself.

[7,052,770]

Anyone else watching Australian Survivor this season?

I won't spoil anything, but this season has 20 new contestants, and 4 returnees. 3 of the returnees are pre-jury boots from earlier seasons who were popular and had some strategic sense, but it just didn't work out for them. The 4th returnee is ... Sandra.

I'm sure the whole season will go up on Paramount+ after it's over, but it's pretty strange they're not putting new episodes up on there weekly and promoting the hell out of "hey American fans watch this season live and see if the Queen can stay Queen against a bunch of Australians!!"

[SnowLabrador]

I've heard Australian Survivor is better than American, but I haven't been watching it.

[7,052,770]

I've heard Australian Survivor is better than American, but I haven't been watching it.

It's got longer seasons, 24 episodes and they generally go on for an hour or more ... and they still tend to "purple" several players per season. The editing is pretty unbalanced. Last season in particular, it was pretty obvious by the time they merged that there were only 4 (maybe 5) plausible winners, with 1 (2ish) being the clear favorites.

The challenges are much better than the American version though. And the feel of the show is so much more epic. The worst part is that it overloads on the silly twists and advantages, even more than the modern American seasons do. So there's a lot of good and it genuinely is entertaining, but there's too many fixable problems to call it better than the American version at this point, even if the highs are higher.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Bump for the premiere tonight.

I thought it was a solid premiere, and this cast seems better than the Survivor 41 cast to me.  I feel like everyone's going to be talking about the evacuation/ejection.  But, what seems most likely to me is that the producers were going to let the situation play out, but someone on the legal team was worried about liability and stepped in.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Bump for the premiere tonight.

I thought it was a solid premiere, and this cast seems better than the Survivor 41 cast to me.  I feel like everyone's going to be talking about the evacuation/ejection.  But, what seems most likely to me is that the producers were going to let the situation play out, but someone on the legal team was worried about liability and stepped in.

Yeah, I really liked the person who got evacuated, but on the other hand…they really should have told production about the issue at some point before literally the day before shooting. Overall a really good premiere with an exciting cast, and hopefully the next few episodes don’t spend as much time on explaining the twists and advantages as they did last season (the amulets were already much better explained than last season’s triple idol).

Re: Christianity, we know Maryanne (whom I LOVED and I know I’m not alone in this!) is a seminarian and devout Christian.

Re: political views on season 41, Tiffany is a Jewish teacher from queens who formed a close friendship with Evvie and talked about LGBT issues with them on Ponderosa. Ricard is Puerto Rican.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

A few episodes in: is anyone else loving this season? I think it’s certainly leagues better than 41 at this point if only for the lesser focus on advantages and more well-rounded editing in general.

[SnowLabrador]

A few episodes in: is anyone else loving this season? I think it’s certainly leagues better than 41 at this point if only for the lesser focus on advantages and more well-rounded editing in general.

I wouldn't call the editing well-rounded; Ika got no confessionals last week. That being said, it's better than 41.

[Farmlands]

A few episodes in: is anyone else loving this season? I think it’s certainly leagues better than 41 at this point if only for the lesser focus on advantages and more well-rounded editing in general.

So much better than 41. The editing is a lot better, the twists haven't occuppied half the episodes' runtimes, and in my opinion, this cast having a wider range of beliefs and personalities helps as well, because it's not just about life experiences sometimes.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

A few episodes in: is anyone else loving this season? I think it’s certainly leagues better than 41 at this point if only for the lesser focus on advantages and more well-rounded editing in general.

So much better than 41. The editing is a lot better, the twists haven't occuppied half the episodes' runtimes, and in my opinion, this cast having a wider range of beliefs and personalities helps as well, because it's not just about life experiences sometimes.

Completely agree.  This season is night and day versus last season.  I'll let Harry due his traditional "guess their politics" thing, but it seems to me that the backgrounds and life experiences of the cast is much more varied than it was last season*.  Plus, every episode has been exciting and every vote unpredictable.

*I do remember reading that Daniel worked on Jeb(!)'s campaign, which is just kind of funny!

[Boobs]

Blast from the past: Survivor: Palau castaway Jolanda Jones is running for the Texas State House of Representatives, and looks to be in a strong position to win the primary runoff (she got 41% in the primary, ahead of the second place finisher who got 20%) and likely win the general in this safe Democratic seat in Houston.

[7,052,770]

Yet another Australian season ruined by terrible and extremely obvious editing. They just keep getting worse and worse, which is sad because the host and challenges are good.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Update for the castaways’ politics thread: Jonathan’s audition video features him serving as a bodyguard for Roy Moore and his dad (Dean Young, the guy who made him run up a mountain every day when he was five) is challenging Kay Ivey from the right in the GOP gubernatorial primary next month.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Update for the castaways’ politics thread: Jonathan’s audition video features him serving as a bodyguard for Roy Moore and his dad (Dean Young, the guy who made him run up a mountain every day when he was five) is challenging Kay Ivey from the right in the GOP gubernatorial primary next month.

For this season, I'd guess Jonathan, Tori, Daniel, and Mike are on the right.

I'd guess that most of the rest lean left, though I'm not sure about Marya and Omar.  Maybe Rocksroy too.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Also some sad news today:

https://twitter.com/RedmondSurvivor/status/1516836124286668810?t=f1__hMbMJ1DmtnN...

[SnowLabrador]

Also some sad news today:

https://twitter.com/RedmondSurvivor/status/1516836124286668810?t=f1__hMbMJ1DmtnN...

RIP FF.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I met Jonny Fairplay, Figgy, Taj, and Keith & Whitney at a watch party in Nashville for tonight's episode.